Year: 2014
Type: preprint
Abstract: Dominance hierarchies are ubiquitous in social species that require social cognition to maintain. Status may be established initially through physical conflict but is maintained by social signals between individuals that depend critically on the relative social status of those interacting. How do individuals collect information they need to modulate their behavior? Using a particularly suitable fish model system living in a complex social environment, we describe how the social context of behavior shapes the brain and, in turn, alters the behavior of animals as they interact. These fish observe social interactions carefully to gather information vicariously that guides future behavior. Social opportunities produce rapid changes in gene expression in key brain nuclei, and both social success and failure produce changes in neuronal cell size and connectivity in reproductive centers of the brain. It remains unknown how social information is transduced into cellular and molecular changes. Understanding the cellular and molecular changes underlying animal cognition will yield unique insights into how the brain works.
Author: Russell D. Fernald
Institution: Stanford University
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Awards: G1085903927, G1199916138, Social and Physiological Regulation of Maturation, G2825424753, Input to GnRH1 neurons: Changes in synaptic identity and connectivity at sexual m, How social behavior changes the brain, SOCIAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL REGULATIONS OF MATURATION, The neural and hormonal substrates of communication in a social environment: Signaler and bystander effects, G8112291497, Small RNA-mediated regulation of adult neuronal plasticity in vivo
OpenAlex ID: W2165513384